August 25, 2021
The Taipei-headquartered blockchain startup XREX announced that it has raised $17 million in pre-Series A funding led by CDIB Capital Group, according to TechCrunch. XREX’s last funding was a $7 million seed round in 2019. The company was set up to aid cross-border businesses in emerging markets perform faster transactions with products like a payment escrow service and crypto-fiat exchange platform.company.
“We specifically wanted to build a regulatory-friendly cap table,” XREX co-founder and chief executive officer Wayne Huang said. Also, part of the new round will be used to apply for financial licenses in Singapore, Hong Kong and South Africa, and partner with banks and financial institutions, like payment gateways.
Huang sold his previous startup, anti-malware SaaS developer Armorize Technologies, to Proofpoint in 2013. Armorize analyzed source code to find vulnerabilities, and many of its clients were developers in Bangalore and Chennai, so Huang spent a lot of time traveling there. He began thinking of how blockchain can support financial inclusion in emerging markets like India. The idea came to fruition when Huang teamed up with XREX co-founder Winston Hsiao, the founder of BTCEx-TW, one of Taiwan’s first bitcoin exchanges.
XREX Crypto Services give merchants, especially those in countries with low U.S.-dollar liquidity, tools to conduct trade in digital fiat currencies. To use the platform, merchants and their customers sign up for XREX’s wallet, which includes a commercial escrow service called Bitcheck. Bitcheck uses digital currencies like USDT and USDC, stablecoins that are pegged to the U.S. dollar.
Some of XREX’s partners include compliance and anti-money-laundering providers like CipherTrace, Sum&Substance and TRISA. Part of XREX’s funding will be used to expand its security and compliance features, including Public Profiles, which are mandatory for customers and use Reputation Index to increase transparency.
Image PxHere
